Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Fred & Rose West

Discovery

February
24, 1994 was the beginning of the end -- the end of the extraordinary
things that had been going on in the ordinary three-story house in
central Gloucester. But it was also the beginning of a discovery as the
layers of secrets hidden at 25 Cromwell Street were slowly peeled away.That
afternoon, the police came to find the owner of the house, Frederick
West. Instead, they found his heavy set, sullen wife Rosemary, who
called her husband the minute they handed her the warrant. "You'd better
get back home," she told Fred when he answered the cellular phone in
his van. "They're going to dig up the garden, looking for Heather."

Heather West (South West News Services)

The dark-haired, simian-looking man was not worried
except that the police wouldn't clean up the mess they were sure to make
lifting up the patio stones in his garden, looking for the body of
their daughter. He stopped by the police station on his way home from
work. He told them he and Rose had no idea where Heather was, but he was
not worried. "Lots of girls disappear," he explained, "take a different
name and go into prostitution." He said she was a lesbian and had
problems with drugs.Rose, who was interviewed at the
house, told a similar story. Heather disappeared at the age of sixteen,
back in 1987. She repeated the story about Heather being a disagreeable
and lazy person and a lesbian to boot.

That
night Fred and Rose stayed up all night and talked. The next morning,
he stepped into the police car. "I killed her," he told Detective
Constable Hazel Savage. When he got to the station, he told the police
in minute detail how he had cut Heather's body into three pieces and
buried them. He kept repeating that Rose had known nothing about the
murder at all.Twenty minutes later he completely
denied everything he had just told them. "Heather's alive and well,
right. She's possibly at the moment in Bahrain working for a drug
cartel. She had a Mercedes, a chauffeur and a new birth certificate." He
told the police that they could dig all they wanted but they wouldn't
find Heather.The police found three human bones, but
they didn't belong to Heather. When Fred heard that human bones had
been found, he confessed once again to murdering his daughter, but he
denied that there were the bones of anyone else buried there.Fred
told how it all happened. The argument with the headstrong Heather,
slapping her for her insolence and grabbing her throat to stop her from
laughing at him. He must have grabbed too hard because she turned blue
and stopped breathing. He tried to revive her, but he didn't have the
training, so he dragged her over to the bathtub and ran cold water over
her. He took off her clothes, lifted her out of the tub and dried her
off. Then he tried to put her in the large garbage bin, but she didn't
fit.So it was back in the bathtub where he knew he
would have to make her smaller. But first, he strangled her with some
tights just to make sure that she was dead. " I didn't want to touch he
while she was alive. I meanif I'd have started cutting her leg or her
throat and she'd have suddenly come alive"He closed
Heather's eyes before he dismembered her. "If somebody's sat there
looking at you, you're not going to use a knife on that person are you?"When
he cut off her head, he found the sound -- a "horrible noiselike
scrunching" -- very unpleasant. But, once her head was off, he started
on her legs, twisting her foot until he heard "one almighty crack and
the leg come loose, like." Cut into pieces, she fit nicely into the
garbage bin.That night after the remainder of his
family was asleep, he buried Heather's body in the garden, where she lay
undiscovered for seven years.

Fred

Walter & Daisy West

Fred West came from a long line of Herefordshire farm
laborers. He was born in 1941 in the village of Much Marcle,
approximately 120 miles west of London, to Walter and Daisy West. Fred
began life as a beautiful baby with huge piercing blue eyes and blond
hair.Despite the war and the poverty in which the
Wests lived, they had six more children, one after another within a
ten-year-period. Fred and his mother enjoyed a very close relationship.
He was her pet and did everything she asked. Fred also had a reasonably
good relationship with his father, who he admired as a role model.

The
beautiful baby grew up into a scruffy-looking boy. His blond hair
turned to a dark brown and became curly and unkempt. He had inherited
some of his mother's less attractive facial features: an overly large
mouth and a gap between his large teeth. He looked distinctly like a
Gypsy.

Fred West. age 7

Fred was not a promising student and was constantly in
trouble for which he was caned. Daisy, seriously overweight and dressed
unattractively, would go to the school to yell at the teacher for
disciplining her favorite son -- an action that made Fred the butt of
many jokes. He was a "mamma's boy." He left school at age fifteen almost
illiterate and went to work as a farm hand.

By
the time he was sixteen, he cleaned himself up enough to be attractive
to girls. He was extremely aggressive with the opposite sex and went
after any girl that caught his fancy.Fred claimed
that his father had sex with his daughters, using the logic, "I made you
so I'm entitled to have you." But then, Fred was a notorious liar. It's
hard to say if his father ever was ever guilty of incest or that Fred
made his sister pregnant as he later claimed.

Fred on his motorcycle (South West News Service)

When Fred was seventeen, he was seriously injured in a
motorcycle accident which left him in a coma for a week and resulted in
having a metal plate put into his head. His leg was broken and was
permanently shorter than the other leg. Some thought that this head
injury made him prone to sudden fits of rage and that he seemed to have
lost control over his emotions.After his recovery
from the accident, Fred met the pretty 16-year-old Catherine Bernadette
Costello, nicknamed Rena, who had been in trouble with the police since
early childhood. By the time she met Fred she was an accomplished and
experienced thief. They became lovers almost immediately, but the affair
ended when she went back home a few months later to Scotland.

Fred
quickly turned his attentions elsewhere and stuck his hand up the skirt
of a young woman standing with him on a fire escape at a local youth
club. She was impressed enough with the gesture to knock him off the
fire escape. In the fall, he banged his head and lost consciousness. The
lasting impact on Fred's behavior suggested that between this incident
and the motorcycle accident, he had suffered some brain damage.In
1961, Fred and his friend stole a watchstrap and cigarette cases from a
jewelry store and were caught with the merchandise on them. Fred and
his colleague were both fined. This was just the beginning of his
troubles. A few months later, he was accused of impregnating a
13-year-old girl who was a friend of the West family. Fred was
surprisingly uncooperative and didn't see that there was anything wrong
with molesting little girls. "Well, doesn't every one do it?"This
attitude and the ensuing scandal caused a serious breach with his
family. Fred was ordered to find somewhere else to live. Distanced now
from his family, he went to work on construction projects. It wasn't
long before he was caught stealing from the construction sites and
having sex with young girls.At Fred's trial for
having sex with the 13-year-old girl, his physician claimed that he was
suffering from epileptic fits. Consequently, he got off without a jail
sentence, but the die was cast. At age 20, Fred West was a convicted
child molester and petty thief -- and a total disgrace to his family.

First Blood

Rena Costello

In 1962, Fred's parents relented and let him come back
to live with them at Much Marcle. That summer, his girlfriend Rena
Costello came back from Scotland and took up with Fred immediately. They
seemed well matched. Rena was not your average girl, but rather an
experienced delinquent that as a teenager had a record for prostitution
and burglary. That Rena was pregnant by an Asian bus driver introduced a
complication into their relationship and to his parents' acceptance of
her as his mate.

Secretly,
they married in November of that year and moved immediately to
Scotland. His parents believed that the baby she was carrying was
Fred's. In March of 1963, when Charmaine was born, Fred had Rena write
to his mother saying that their baby had died in childbirth and that she
had adopted a mixed-race child.Even though Rena had
been a prostitute at various times, she was not happy to be a prisoner
to the voracious sexual appetite of Fred West. Colin Wilson in The Corpse Garden tells how Fred's interest in "normal sex" was minimal. "He wanted oral sex, bondage andsodomyat all hours of the day and night.Fred
drove an ice cream truck which afforded him unlimited access to many
young women. For someone as highly sexed as Fred, it seemed like
paradise. His politeness, apparent trustworthiness and sincerity, and
his ability to spin interesting tales made him attractive to the
teenagers who flocked around his ice cream truck. His continual
seductions turned Rena and Charmaine into afterthoughts. Despite Fred's
almost daily infidelities, he was very possessive of Rena and Charmaine.In
1964, Rena bore Fred's child, a daughter they named Anna Marie. "On
again, off again" characterized their roller coaster marriage for
several years. During that time, Rena and Fred met Anna McFall, whose
boyfriend had been killed in an accident. At that time, Fred was
involved in an accident with the ice cream truck that killed a young
boy. While Fred wasn't at fault, he was concerned that he would lose his
job. So, he and Rena and their two children, plus Anna McFall moved
back to Gloucester. Fred had a job in a slaughterhouse.Colin
Wilson sees this job in the slaughterhouse as having a profound affect
on Fred. "One thing is clear: that at some stage, West developed a
morbid obsession with corpses and blood and dismemberment. There is no
evidence that he had shown any such interest so far. It seems, then,
that Fred West's sexual perversion became slowly more obsessive in the
period following his marriage, and the evidence suggests that
necrophilia and desire to mutilate corpses began during his period as a
butcher."Rena and Fred's marriage became
increasingly unstable. Rena wanted to take the two children back with
her to Glasgow, but Fred refused, so she went back to Scotland alone.
But she was miserable without her daughters and, in July of 1966,
returned to Gloucester to find Fred and Anna McFall living together in a
trailer.Rena told Constable Hazel Savage that her
husband was a sex pervert and unfit to raise their children.
Coincidentally, there were eight sexual assaults committed in the
Gloucester area committed by a man of Fred's description.

Anna McFall, victim

In early 1967, Anna McFall became pregnant with Fred's
child. She was trying unsuccessfully to get Fred to divorce Rena and
marry her. Fred responded to the stress of her demands by killing her
and burying her near the trailer park sometime in July.Not
only did he kill his mistress and their unborn child, he slowly and
methodically dismembered her corpse and buried her along with the fetus.
Oddly enough, he cut off her fingers and toes, which were missing from
the gravesite. It would be his ritualistic signature in future crimes.

Fred
acted very nervous after McFall's disappearance. Then Rena moved back
into the trailer and Fred became his old self again. Fred happily sent
Rena out to earn some pocket money as a prostitute and began to openly
fondle the young Charmaine.

Mary Bastholm (South West News Services)

In January of 1968, pretty 15-year-old Mary Bastholm was
abducted from a bus stop in Gloucester. Howard Sounes believes that
Fred was responsible because in later years, he abducted other women in a
similar fashion from bus stops.

There
were a number of links between Fred and Mary Bastholm: he was a
customer at the Pop-In [where Mary worked] and Mary often served him
tea; Fred had been employed to do some building work behind the caf�;
Mary had been seen with a girl fitting the description of Fred's former
lover, Anna McFall; and one witness claims to have seen Mary in Fred's
car. (Sounes)In February, Fred's mother died of
complications of a gallbladder operation. He launched into a series of
petty thefts, which caused him to change jobs frequently. On November
29, 1968, while he was working as a bakery delivery driver, he met the
girl who would become his next wife and longtime soul mate, Rose Letts.

Rose

Bill Letts

Rosemary Letts was born in November 1953 in Devon,
England with a less than auspicious heritage. Her father, Bill Letts was
a schizophrenic. Her mother, Daisy Letts, suffered from severe
depression. Bill Letts was a violent domestic tyrant who demanded
unconditional obedience from his wife and children. He enjoyed
disciplining them and seemed to look for reasons to beat them. Given
Bill's psychotic episodes and rigid Victorian behavior, he was not an
ideal employee and drifted through a series of low-paying, unskilled
jobs. The family was always short of money.

His
son Andrew recalled, " If he felt we were in bed too late, he would
throw a bucket of cold water over us. He would order us to dig the
garden, and that meant the whole garden. Then he would inspect it like
an army officer, and if he was not satisfied, we would have to do it all
over againWe were not allowed to speak and play like normal children.
If we were noisy, he would go for us with a belt or chunk of wood. He
would beat you black and blue until mum got in between us. Then she
would get a good hiding."After giving birth to three
daughters and a son and trying to cope with her violent husband,
Daisy's deepening depression resulted in hospitalization in 1953. She
was treated with the controversial electroshock therapy. Shortly after a
number of these treatments, which delivered electric currents into the
brain, Daisy gave birth to Rosemary. The effect of the electroshock
therapy upon the daughter growing in her womb was unknown.However, Howard Sounes in his book, Fred & Rose, describes how Rose was different from other children:She
developed a habit of rocking herself in her cot; if she was put in a
pram without the brake on, she rocked so violently that the pram crept
across the room. As she became a little older, Rose only rocked her
head, but she did this for hours on end. It was one of the first
indications that, in the family's words, she was 'a bit slow.'As Rose
grew from a baby to a toddler to a little girl, she would swing her head
for hours until she seemed to have hypnotized herself into
semiconsciousness.""Dozy Rosie," as she was called,
was not very intelligent, but she had very pretty features: big brown
eyes, a clear complexion and attractive brown hair. As she got older,
she developed a tendency towards chubbiness.

Rose Letts in her teens (school photo)

Rose was smart enough, however, to make herself her
father's pet, always doing whatever he wished immediately. Thereby, she
alone received paternal affection and escaped the beatings.

Given
her lack of intellectual gifts, Rose was not a star performer in
school. Also, she was overweight, which made her the butt of cruel jokes
by her peers. She lashed out at them and attacked anyone who teased
her. Consequently, she became known as an ill tempered, aggressive
loner.As a teenager, Rose showed signs of being
sexually precocious, walking around naked after her baths and climbing
into bed with her younger brother and fondling him sexually. Her
father's rules forbade her to date boys her own age and her heaviness
and temperament kept boys from being interested in her. She focused her
interest in sex on the older men of the village.In
January of 1968, Rose and other girls of the community began to fear for
their safety. A fifteen-year-old girl named Mary Bastholm disappeared
from a bus stop in Gloucester. Mary had been on the way to visit her
boyfriend, carrying a Monopoly set. All that the police found at the bus
stop were a few pieces of the Monopoly set. The disappearance was
thought to be linked to several other rapes in the area.Rose
was cautious for awhile, but her boredom and loneliness drove her to
seek out male companionship. On one occasion, an older man, who had
taken advantage of her na�vet�, raped her.Early in
1969, Daisy Letts became tired of being her husband's punching bag, took
fifteen-year-old Rose, and moved in temporarily with her daughter
Glenys and her husband. Without her father watching her, Rose spent a
lot of time out at night. Her brother-in-law, Jim Tyler claimed that
Rose carried on with a number of men much older than she was and that
Rose had even tried to seduce him.In mid-1969, Rose
moved back with her father, an action that surprised everyone. Some said
that Rose and her father had an incestuous relationship and that Bill
Letts had a reputation for molesting young girls, but all of this was
unsubstantiated rumor.Thus in her early teens, Rose
Letts seemed destined for a dull and unhappy life: she was not very
smart and not very pleasant tempered. She was an underachiever, a rebel
against authority and unfocused toward any productive goal, aside from
finding a lover older than herself.Then she met Fred West.

A young Fred and Rose West

Love and Death

However
limited Bill Letts was as an ideal parent, he saw Fred West as a
completely undesirable boyfriend for Rose. When Bill found that Rose was
sleeping with Fred, he raised a fuss with the Social Services. When
that was ineffective, he showed up at Fred's trailer park and threatened
him.Meanwhile West was sent to prison for various
thefts and failure to pay fines for previous offenses. Rose went back to
stay with her father until he found that she was pregnant with Fred's
child. At age 16, Rose left her father's house to take care of Charmaine
and Anna Marie, as well as deal with Fred, who seemed to always be in
trouble with the law.

In 1970, she gave birth to Heather. With three children
to care for, a boyfriend in jail and constant money problems, Rose's
temper flared constantly. She resented having to take care of Rena's
children and treated them badly.

One
day in the summer of 1971, Charmaine was suddenly missing and Rose told
her sister Anna Marie that Rena had come to get her. Colin Wilson
believes that Rose "simply lost her temper, and went further than usual
in beating or throttling her. She was, as Anna Marie said, a woman
entirely without self-control; when she lost her temper, she became a
kind of maniac."Since Fred was in jail when
Charmaine was murdered, his involvement probably extended to burying her
body under the kitchen floor of their home on Midland Road where it lay
undiscovered for over 20 years. Before he buried Charmaine, he took off
her fingers, toes and kneecaps. Fred would hold this criminal secret
over Rose for the rest of her life.When her father
came to take her away from Fred, Fred reminded her: "Come on, Rosie, you
know what we've got between us." Bill Letts noticed that that statement
upset Rose. "You don't know him!" she told her parents. "You don' t
know him! There's nothing he wouldn't do -- even murder!"Gloucesterhad
a large population of West Indians that created entertainment and extra
income for both Rose and Fred. Rose invited many West Indian men over
to their house on Midland Road to have sex with her -- either for cash
or fun. Fred, the voyeur encouraged this behavior and watched through a
peephole. As over-sexed as he was, Fred was not at all interested in
ordinary sex. It had to involve bondage, vibrators, acts of sadism or
lesbianism to get him involved. Fred took erotic photos of Rose and ran
them as ads in magazines for "swingers."When Rose
murdered Charmaine, she created both a problem and an opportunity for
Fred regarding his first wife Rena. It was just a matter of time before
Rena came around looking for Charmaine. In fact, in August of 1971, Rena
sought out Walter, Fred's father, in hopes that he could tell her what
happened to Charmaine.Fred saw that he had no choice
but to kill Rena. In all likelihood, he probably got her very drunk and
then strangled her at his house on Midland Road. He then dismembered
her body and mutilated it in the same odd way that he had Anna McFall's
body: he cut off Rena's fingers and toes. Then he put her remains into
bags and buried her in the same general area as he buried Anna McFall.Later
that year, Fred and Rose became friendly with their new neighbor,
Elizabeth Agius, who babysat for them several times. When Fred and Rose
returned home, Elizabeth asked them where they had been. The
surprisingly candid answer was that they were cruising around looking
for young girls, hopefully young virgins. Fred thought that with Rose in
the car that a young woman would not fear taking a ride with them.
Elizabeth assumed at the time that they were joking. Another time, Agius
was openly propositioned by Fred. And still another time, she was,
according to Colin Wilson, drugged and raped.

Rose's magazine ad for prostitution

In June of 1972, Rose had another daughter by Fred. They
named her Mae West. This time, the child was legitimate, Fred and Rose
having married in January of that year at the Gloucester Registry
Office.Fred and Rose decided they needed a house to
raise their growing family and also accommodate Rose's prostitution
business. Number 25 Cromwell was just the place. The house was not much
to look at on the outside, but the inside was large and had a garage and
a good-sized cellar. They took in lodgers to help pay the rent.

Fred
had plans for the cellar and told Elizabeth Agius that he was either
going to make it into a place for Rose to entertain her clients or he
would soundproof it and use it as his "torture chamber."The
first client was his eight-year-old daughter, Anna Marie. He and Rose
undressed her and told her that she was lucky that she had such caring
parents who were making sure that when she got married she would be able
to satisfy her husband. Anna Marie's hands were tied behind her and a
gag put in her mouth.Then while Rose held the girl
down, her father raped her. The pain was so severe that the girl could
not go to school for several days. She was warned that she would be
beaten if she ever told anyone about the rape. Another time, Anna Marie
was strapped down while her father raped her quickly on his brief lunch
hour.In late 1972, Fred and Rose picked up a
17-year-old girl named Caroline Owens and hired her as a nanny. They
promised Caroline's family that they would watch out for her while she
lived with them.

Caroline Owens

In late 1972, Fred and Rose picked up a 17-year-old girl
named Caroline Owens and hired her as a nanny. They promised Caroline's
family that they would watch out for her while she lived with them.Caroline
was very attractive, so much so that Rose and Fred competed with each
other to seduce her. In short order, Caroline found the Wests repugnant
and told them she was leaving. The couple abducted, stripped and raped
her. Fred told her that if she didn't do what he wanted, "I'll keep you
in the cellar and let my black friends have you, and when we're finished
we'll kill you and bury you under the paving stones of Gloucester."
Terrified, she believed him. When her mother saw her bruises, she got
the truth from her and called the police.

There
was a hearing in January of 1973. Fred was thirty-one and Rose a mere
nineteen -- and pregnant once again. Fred was able to con the magistrate
into believing that Caroline was a willing partner. Despite Fred's
criminal record, the magistrate did not believe the Wests were capable
of violence and fined them each.

Lynda Gough (South West News Services)

For some time, the Wests had been carrying on a
friendship with seamstress Lynda Gough. Eventually, Lynda moved into 25
Cromwell Street to take care of the children. Something went amiss in
the relationship and Lynda was murdered. Fred dismembered her and buried
her in a pit in the garage. True to his ritual, he removed her fingers,
toes and kneecaps. When Lynda's family came looking for her, they were
told that she had stayed there but had left.A
hideous pattern was emerging. Young women would come to stay at 25
Cromwell either as lodgers or friends or nannies, but so few ever made
it out with their lives. The house was slowly becoming a monument to the
depravity of its inhabitants.

House of Horrors

�

Carol Ann Cooper (South West News Services)

1973 was a year for the Wests to celebrate. They walked
away from Caroline Owens' rape and abduction charge with only a fine and
they murdered Lynda Gough with no police repercussions at all. Then in
August, their first son, Stephen, was born.

Emboldened
by their success, they abducted fifteen-year-old Carol Ann Cooper in
November and amused themselves with her sexually -- that is, until she
outlived her entertainment value and was snuffed out by strangulation or
suffocation, dismembered and buried. She joined the growing city of the
dead at 25 Cromwell Street.Industrious Fred,
persistent in his home improvements, had enlarged the cellar and was
demolishing the garage to build an extension to the main house. No
matter that these improvements were done at very strange hours.A
little over a month later, university student Lucy Partington had gone
home to her mother's house to spend the Christmas holiday. On December
27, she went to visit her disabled friend and left to catch a bus
shortly after 10 P.M. She had the misfortune to meet up with Fred and
Rose, who probably knocked her out and abducted her. Like Carol Ann
Cooper, she was tortured for approximately a week and then murdered,
dismembered and buried in Fred's construction projects. He cut himself
while dismembering Lucy and had to go to the hospital for stitches on
January 3, 1974.Lucy, like Carol Ann Cooper, was reported missing, but there was nothing to tie the two girls to the Wests.Between
April of 1974 and April of 1975, three young women -- Therese
Siegenthaler, 21, Shirley Hubbard, 15, and Juanita Mott, 18, met the
same fate as Carol Ann Cooper and Lucy Partington. Their tortured and
dismembered bodies were buried under the cellar floor of the West's
house.Bondage was becoming a major thrill for Fred
and Rose. Shirley's head had been wrapped entirely with tape and a
plastic tube was inserted in her nose so that she could breathe. Juanita
was subjected to even more extreme bondage:Juanita
was gagged with a ligature made from two long, white nylon socks
(similar to those worn by Rose), a brassiere and two pairs of tights,
one within the other. She was then trussed up with lengths of
plastic-covered rope, of the type used for washing line. The rope was
used in a complicated way, with loops tied around her arms and thighs,
both wrists, both ankles and her skull, horizontally and vertically,
backwards and forwards across her body until she could only wriggle like
a trapped animal. Then the Wests produced a seven-foot length of rope
with a slipknot end forming a noose. This was probably used to suspend
Juanita's body from the beams in the cellar. (Sounes)Incredibly
enough with this charnel house in his cellar, Fred continued to attract
the police with continuous thefts and fencing stolen goods. It was
necessary for Fred to keep stealing to pay for his home improvement
projects. His home improvement projects were necessary to keep the
monstrous habits of his wife and himself covered up with layers of
concrete.In 1976, the Wests enticed a young woman,
designated as Miss A by the courts, from a home for wayward girls. At
Cromwell Street, Miss A was led into a room with two naked girls who
were prisoners there. She witnessed the torture of the two girls and was
raped by Fred and sexually assaulted by Rose.

Shirley Robinson (South West News Services)

One of the girls that Miss A saw was probably Anna
Marie, Fred's daughter who was a constant target of the couple's sexual
sadism. As if Fred's rape and torture of his daughter was not enough, he
brought home his friends to have sex with her.

In
1977, the upstairs of the house had been remodeled to allow for a
number of lodgers. One of them was Shirley Robinson, 18, a former
prostitute with bisexual inclinations. Shirley developed relationships
with both Fred and Rose. Shirley became pregnant with Fred's child after
Rose was pregnant with the child of one of her black clients.While
Fred was pleased that Rose was carrying a mixed child, Rose was not
comfortable with Shirley carrying Fred's child. Shirley foolishly
thought that she could displace Rose in Fred's life and, in the process,
jeopardized her own existence. Rose made it clear that Shirley had to
go.And go she did, seven months after Rose gave
birth to Tara in December of 1977, Shirley joined the rest of the girls
buried on Cromwell Street. The cellar being full, Shirley was put in the
rear garden along with her unborn child. This time, Fred dismembered
Shirley and their unborn baby.In November of 1978,
Rose and Fred had yet another daughter who they named Louise, making a
total of six children in the bizarre and unwholesome household. Fred
also impregnated his daughter Anna Marie, but the pregnancy occurred in
her fallopian tube and had to be terminated.In May
of 1979, Rose's father died of a lung ailment. Several months later, the
Wests were up to their old tricks and murdered a troubled teenager
named Alison Chambers after they raped and tortured her. Like Shirley,
Alison was buried in the "overflow" cemetery in the rear garden.The
children were aware of some of the goings on in the home. They knew
that Rose was a prostitute and that Anna Marie was being raped by her
father. When Anna Marie moved out to live with her boyfriend, Fred
focused his sexual advances on Heather and Mae. Heather resisted her
father and was beaten for it.In June of 1980, Rose
gave birth to Barry, Fred's second son. Then again, in April of 1982,
Rose gave birth to Rosemary Junior, who was not Fred's child.In
July of 1983, Rose gave birth to another daughter who they named
Lucyanna. She was half-black, like Tara and Rosemary Junior. Rose became
increasingly irrational and beat the children without provocation. The
stress of so many children in the household took its toll on Rose's
already bad temper.The Wests probably continued to carry on their sexual abductions, but did not bury any of these new victims at 25 Cromwell St.In
1986, the wall of filial silence that has protected the Wests, was
broken. Heather told her girlfriend about her father's advances, her
mother's affairs and the beatings she received. The girlfriend told her
parents, who were friends of the Wests, and Heather's life was in
jeopardy.After her parents murdered her, they told
the children that she left home. Fred asked his son Stephen to help him
dig a hole in the rear garden, where Fred later buried Heather's
dismembered body.Rose built up her prostitution
business by advertising in special magazines. She and Fred were on the
lookout for women who they could get to participate in their various
perversions as well as prostitute herself under Rose's direction. One
such woman, Katherine Halliday, became a fixture in the West household
and saw first hand the black bondage suits and masks that they had
collected, plus the whips and chains. With good reason, Katherine became
alarmed and quickly broke off her relationship with them.As
time went on, Fred and Rosemary became increasingly concerned about
creating a minimum fa�ade of respectability, not because they cared what
people thought of them, but because they were concerned that knowledge
of what had gone on in their house would jeopardize their freedom.The
West's long run of luck was coming to an end. One of the very young
girls that Fred had raped with Rose's assistance told her girlfriend
what happened. The girlfriend went to the police and the case was
assigned to a very talented and persistent Detective Constable named
Hazel Savage. Hazel knew Fred from his days with Rena and remembered the
stories that Rena had told her about Fred's sexual perversions.On
August 6, 1992, police arrived at 25 Cromwell Street with a search
warrant to look for pornography and evidence of child abuse. They found
mountains of pornography and arrested Rose for assisting in the rape of a
minor. Fred was arrested for rape and sodomy of a minor.Hazel
Savage went to work interviewing family members and friends of the
Wests. When she talked to Anna Marie, she heard for the first time the
shocking story about how she had been so severely abused. She also
expressed her concerns about Charmaine, who Hazel had known from her
experiences with Rena.Hazel had all she needed to
bring child abuse charges, but she needed to further investigate the
disappearance of Charmaine, Rena and Heather. Hazel was not satisfied
that Heather had disappeared without a trace. Insurance and tax records
showed that Heather had not been employed nor had she visited a doctor
in four years. Either she had left the country or was dead.

(left to right) Rosemary Jr., Tara, Barry West with school friend (school photo)

The younger children were taken from Rose and put into
government care. With Fred in jail and the police closing in on her,
Rose took an overdose of pills and attempted suicide. Her son Stephen
found her and saved her life. Later, she escaped from her loneliness by
stuffing herself with candy and watching Disney videos.

Fred
didn't do much better in prison. He was very depressed and sorry for
himself. Actually, his luck was holding -- for the time being. The case
against the Wests collapsed when two key witnesses decided not to
testify against them. But the seeds of their discovery had been sown.
The strange, inexplicable disappearance of Heather was firmly implanted
in Hazel Savage's mind.Hazel took over the case and
launched an inquiry into Heather's whereabouts. When no sign of the girl
was found, Hazel feared that that the rumor was true that Heather was
buried under the patio. The West children were questioned repeatedly.
Fred had threatened them that if they didn't keep their silence that
they would end up under the patio like Heather.

Detective John Bennett (AP)

Detective Superintendent John Bennett was in charge of
the media-sensitive case. Finally the warrant to search the Cromwell
Street house and garden was signed, but the logistics of digging up a
fifteen by sixty-foot garden were nontrivial. Furthermore, Fred's
extension to the house was built over a portion of the garden. The
search would be very expensive and be certain to attract attention of
the media.

Things
improved for the investigation after Fred confessed to killing his
daughter and after human bones other than Heather's were found in the
garden. When Rose was informed of Fred's confession, she claimed that
Fred had sent her out of the house the day Heather disappeared and had
no knowledge of Heather's death.The police set about
the grim task of digging up the large garden. Fred had been released
temporarily until there was evidence to hold him. But, as Fred watched
the police dig up the garden, he knew it was a matter of time before
they found Heather and the others buried in the rear garden.

Police digging in the garden (AP)

Fred told his son that he had done something really bad
and would be going away for awhile. Steve remembered that "He looked at
me so evil and so cold. That look went right through me."Finally
the police found the remains of a young woman, dismembered and
decapitated. Then another victim was found. When the police heard about
the disappearance of Shirley Robinson, the scope of the investigation
widened.

To protect
Rose, Fred claimed responsibility for the murders himself. He was
charged with the murders of Heather, Shirley Robinson and the as yet
unidentified third woman. Furthermore, an investigation was opened into
the disappearance of Rena and Charmaine. For some reason, Fred decided
to tell the police about the girls buried in his cellar. Fred admitted
to murdering the girls, but not rape. These girls, he maintained, wanted
to have sex with him.As Fred chatted about his
murders, the police tried to grapple with the evidence. Lining up bodies
with names was not an easy task. Nine sets of bones were discovered in
the cellar and the police did not know whose they were. Fred was not
much help since he could not remember the names and details of some of
the women he had picked up. Considering the many women who go missing
every year, extensive work had to be done to match up missing person's
reports with the remains.As the case developed, Rose
abandoned Fred to save herself. She tried to position herself as the
victim of a murderous man, but she was not particularly convincing.
Police worked continuously to tie her in to the crimes.The
bodies of Rena, Anna McFall and Charmaine were found as Fred continued
to cooperate with the police. On the Mary Bastholm case, Fred decided to
quit cooperating and her body was not found.At
their joint hearing, Fred attempted to console Rose, but she avoided his
touch. She told the police he made her sick. The great partnership in
crime was over.

Endgame

Fred's last portrait (POLICE)

Rose's rejection was devastating to Fred. On December
13, 1994, he was charged with twelve murders. Again, Rose brushed him
off. He had written to her, "We will always be in love...You will always
be Mrs. West, all over the world. That is important to me and to you."

Just
before noon on New Year's Day at Winson Green Prison in Birmingham,
when the guards were having lunch, Fred hanged himself with strips of
bedsheet. He had clearly planned his suicide well in advance so that he
would not be discovered.

Rose leaves court following testimony (AP)

Despite the paucity of direct evidence linking her to
the murders, Rose went to trial on October 3, 1995. A number of
witnesses -- including Caroline Owens, Miss A, and Anna Marie --
testified to Rose's sadistic sexual assaults on young women.

The
goal of the prosecution, led by Brian Leveson QC, was to construct a
tight web of circumstantial evidence of Rose's guilt. The defense, led
by Richard Ferguson QC, tried to show that evidence of sexual assault
was not the same as evidence of murder. That Rose did not know what Fred
was doing when he murdered the girls and buried them in various places.Fergusonmade
the mistake of putting Rose on the stand. Her defiance came through
very clearly to the jury. Furthermore, the prosecution learned to
extract damaging testimony from her by making her angry. She left the
jury with entrenched beliefs that Rose had treated the children badly
and that she was completely dishonest.Finally the
defense played the recordings of Fred West describing how he had
murdered the victims when Rose was out of the house. Unfortunately for
Rose, Fred was shown to be lying on key issues, which threw his entire
statement into doubt.The most dramatic evidence was
given by Janet Leach, who was called as the "appropriate adult"
(witness) to Fred West's police interviews. Privately, Fred had told her
that Rose was involved in the murders -- and that Rose had murdered
Charmaine and Shirley Robinson without him -- but that he made a deal
with his wife to take all the blame on himself.Janet
was so stressed by this confidential confession that she suffered a
stroke. It was only after Fred's death that she felt that she could tell
the police what he had said to her. After her testimony, she collapsed
and had to be taken to the hospital.

Rosemary West (AP)

In his summary, Leveson called Rose the "strategist" and
the dominant partner. "The evidence that Rosemary West knew nothing is
not worthy of belief." Ferguson, in his summary, stressed that the
evidence only pointed to Fred.The jury took very
little time to find Rose guilty of the murders of Charmaine, Heather,
Shirley Robinson and the other girls buried at the house. The judge
sentenced her to life imprisonment on each of ten counts of murder.

Update Archive

Updates March 1998 - December 1998My Father the KillerOn Wednesday, March 25, 1998, four years after the sentencing of Rose West, the case was again in the news when BBC News Online
reported that Fred Wests son Stephen had told authorities that he was
convinced his father had killed 15-year-old waitress Mary Bastholm.Stephen
told police, that while visiting his father in prison in December 1994,
Fred West had boasted that Bastholms body would never be found. He said
his father talked of other victims and told his son: They are not going
to find them all, you know, never.Stephen then specifically asked him about Mary.� His father replied: I will never tell anyone where she is.Bastholm
was last seen alive at a Gloucester bus stop on January 5, 1968 while
on her way to meet her boyfriend.� At the time of her disappearance she
was carrying a Monopoly game, pieces of which were found strewn over the
ground near the area where she was abducted.While
no hard evidence was ever found, police had long considered Bastholm to
be yet another victim of Fred West, a claim that West had strenuously
denied although Bastholm had been seen in Wests car.� West had also been
a regular a customer in the caf� where Mary worked and had carried out
building work at the rear of the premises.Mary's
brother Peter is also convinced she was abducted and murdered by West.�
He told BBC {News Online} that he was relieved by the news but, because
his parents had both died without learning the fate of their only
daughter, he would never rest until Marys body was found.Family Trait?On Wednesday, May 20, 1998 the West case was back in the news when BBC News Online
reported that William Hill, a cousin of Fred West, had been jailed for
four years after being convicted of one count of rape and three charges
of indecent assault.Like his infamous cousin, Hill
preyed on young women and one of his convictions related to the indecent
assault on a fifteen-year-old girl over an extended period during 1980
and 1981.Two cousins, Fred and John West both hanged
themselves in prison prior to their convictions.� Ironically, Hill also
attempted to take his life in the same prison where Fred West had ended
his. He was later moved to a mental facility.Conspiracy of SilenceTwo
months later, British politicians joined the victims families in
expressing their outrage when it was announced that a television drama,
based on the exploits of Fred and Rosemary West, was to be made.The announcement concerned the commissioning of a four-part drama series titled Conspiracy of Silence.�
The series was commissioned by Channel 5, London and made by Portman
Entertainment, the company that bought the film rights to Fred West's
biography and archive material in 1997.Relatives of
the victims were shocked and horrified and accused the companies
involved of cashing in on the hideous crimes of Fred and Rosemary West.Greg
Day, a spokesman for Channel 5, defended his companys position saying
the project was not intended to capitalize on the crimes but merely to
educate a large percentage of the population who were looking for
answers:� We are aware that the key to understanding what happened at 25
Cromwell Street is understanding sexual abuse.� A lot of it will be
uncomfortable because it will deal with that but that is a valid part of
the story which needs to be understood.As a result,
Home Secretary Jack Straw told the BBC that his government would be
looking at ways to prevent criminals profiting from their crimes by
selling the book and film rights to their stories.Hideous ConfessionsOn Thursday, June 4, 1998, BBC News Online
continued their coverage of the case when they reported that Janet
Leach, the voluntary worker who had been appointed to sit-in on police
interviews while Fred West confessed to his crimes, was seeking the
right to sue the police for damages.Leach claimed she suffered post traumatic stress disorder after being subjected to Wests hideous confessions in 1994.Leachs
lawyers described how their client had attended 40 interviews over
several months and had become traumatised while listening to the most
harrowing and horrifying details of West's crimes.Her
lawyers also claimed that Leach was not offered counselling by the
police, even though it had been offered to police officers and at least
one solicitor involved in the case.Leach suffered a
stroke in November 1995 when she was giving evidence at the trial of
Rosemary West resulting in the trial being delayed for several days
after Leach lost the power of speech but later recovered enough to
return and conclude her testimony.Her original claim
for compensation was thrown out in November 1997 after a judge at the
Bristol County Court ruled it would not have been fair, just or
reasonable to say the police owed her a duty of care.Since
that time her lawyers have sought three separate appeals to have the
decision overturned on the grounds that police should have been aware
that having to spend hours and hours with one of the most notorious mass
murderers of the 20th century gave rise to a risk of psychological
injury.They stated that Leach had previously worked
for a voluntary organization that worked with the homeless and only had
experience acting as an appropriate adult for mentally disordered
youths.Apart from being in attendance at the West
confessions, Leach also accompanied West to his Cromwell Street home
where the victims had been tortured, killed, dismembered and buried.�
She was also taken to a field where the remains of another victim had
been buried.Chief counsel for Leach, Roderick Denyer, told BBC News Online:
The police offered counselling to their own officers and didn't offer
it to her. To impose a duty of care in this case is not unreasonable.In
response, Simon Freeland, acting on behalf of the Gloucestershire
police, said: The force's code of practice requires that a person
suspected of having a mental disorder could only be interviewed by
police if an appropriate adult was present to protect their interests.�
He also said that the police had not appointed Mrs Leach, and there was
no contractual agreement with the police therefore they were not in a
position to override the legitimate choice of West or his lawyers that
she should be the appropriate adult in the case.Old BonesOn
Saturday, December 19 1998, Gordon Burn, the author of a new book about
the West murders, was interviewed by detectives in relation to dozens
of missing bones related to the case.� The book Happy Like Murderers
took Burns over three years to write and involved extensive research.The
Chief Constable of Gloucestershire police, Tony Butler, and Detective
Chief Inspector Terry Moore, interviewed Burn for over an hour regarding
his theories on the whereabouts of numerous bones which were missing
from several of West's victims.Chief Inspector Moore
had taken charge of the case following the retirement of Detective
Superintendent John Bennett.� Moore told BBC News Online: Out of
all the books it's probably the best written and the most interesting
but there is a certain amount of journalistic licence.� He has got some
things right and some things wrong.Referring to the
bones, Moore added: There are various theories but nothing has come to
light. The secret has gone to the grave with Fred and Rose not saying
anything.Previous evidence given during Rosemary
Wests trial by pathologist Professor Bernard Knight indicated: the bones
- ranging from small finger and toe joints to entire shoulder blades -
must have been removed prior to burial.Burn became a
person of interest when he suggested in his book that Fred West may
have buried them near Pittville Park in Cheltenham, as the park is close
to the bus stop where Fred and Rose first met in 1970.� Burns believes
the location holds an almost spiritual significance for the Wests.Burn,
who also wrote a book about the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, was
questioned at length regarding his research and asked wether he had been
given any assistance by currently serving or retired police officers.�Updates November 1999 - October 2000Shame and BlameOn
Thursday, November 18, 1999, Anne-Marie Davies, the daughter of Fred
West was pulled from a river in Gloucester after a member of the public
reported seeing someone fall from a nearby Bridge.� Following the
rescue, Davis was taken to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital for treatment
but was later discharged.Davies had previously
attempted suicide by taking an overdose of tablets during her
stepmother's trial but survived after she was rushed to hospital and had
her stomach pumped.On Sunday, 5 March 2000, Court TV reported that Rosemary West had secured legal aid funding and was preparing an appeal in an attempt to clear her name.

West
was expected to apply to have her case referred to the Court of Appeal
by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates miscarriages
of justice.

According to her lawyer, Leo Goatley, West may
unearth new photographic evidence, which would prove that her husband,
Fred West, was the sole killer.

He also claimed his client could
be cleared by anatomical photographs of women which were taken by Fred
West and seized by police during an earlier investigation in 1992.� He
asserts that the photographs were time stamped when they were taken,
which could help his client prove she was not there.

The original
photographs were allegedly destroyed but Goatley said his client was
confident copies would have been made or details of the photographs
chronicled by police.

He told reporters: The issue here is
whether Rose West got a fair trial.� I have always believed her
situation was different to Fred West's. She has always maintained her
innocence.� There are a number of issues regarding disclosure and
chequebook journalism that are worthy of review and I feel would have
contributed to her not getting a fair trial.

In response,
Gloucestershire Chief Constable Tony Butler said: We believe that all
material was disclosed to the Crown Prosecution Service during the
case.� We have no idea what the current issues being raised by Mr
Goatley are, and suggest he contacts us through the proper channels.A previous appeal, launched in 1996 was rejected.On
Friday, 20 October 2000, the promised appeal was launched when her
lawyer faxed a skeleton argument to the Criminal Cases Review
Commission.He told BBC News Online: An
application to review the case has been made on the basis that she
didn't get a fair trial for a number of reasons, which I am not going to
go into.�
�Updates July 2001 - October 2001A Career in TattersOn
Monday, 23 July 2001, former prison officer Lynn Armstrong announced
that she was suing the British Home Office because she was encouraged to
befriend Rosemary West while West was on suicide watch in Winchester
Prison.Armstrong claims she was so traumatised by
her exposure to the notorious killer in Winchester Prison it left her
under the illusion West was innocent.Her counsel, Andrew Bulhan, told Londons High Court that his client had spent more time with West than any other officer.Bulhan told BBC News Online
that the shock of West's conviction for horrendous crimes had driven
his client into a depression which transformed from being an ambitious
and highly motivated woman officer into a grumpy, argumentative,
belligerent and, I'm afraid, disillusioned prison officer until she was
medically retired.He stated that her superiors in
the prison system had failed to protect her against the risk of
psychiatric injury associated with prolonged exposure to one of the
worst mass killers Britain has ever produced.Armstrong was seeking �50,000 compensation.Many MoreOn Thursday, 27 September 2001, BBC News Online
reported that the makers of the documentary detailing the crimes of
Fred and Rosemary West had called for a public inquiry into police and
social services failings, which allowed him (Fred West) to continue
killing women for 25 years.The programme includes an
interview with social worker Janet Leach who attests to the fact that
Fred West had confessed to killing many more than the 12 victims he was
charged with.� "Fred said that there were two other bodies in shallow
graves in the woods but there was no way they would ever be found.� He
said there were 20 other bodies not in one place but spread around and
he would give police one a year.� He told me the truth about the girls
in the cellar and what happened to them so I don't see why he would lie
about other bodies.Derek Jones, the director and co-producer of the programme, told BBC News Online:
There definitely needs to be a public inquiry.� No one has even
scratched the surface of this case. They should look at the failures of
social services and police in Gloucestershire in the 1970s and 1980s.�
Social services had 300 missing files and 100 missing girls. There were
two girls from Jordansbrook children's home who were making a living as
prostitutes from 25 Cromwell Street.He told
reporters that questions should been asked regarding Charmaine, the
Wests eldest daughter who disappeared in 1970.� West claimed she had
moved back to Scotland to be with her mother and social services failed
to follow that up.He compared the case to that of
serial killer Harold Shipman where a public inquiry had revealed Shipman
was responsible for the deaths of a greater number of victims than he
was charged with.The program also describes how West
told his solicitor that he believed the spirits of his victims were
coming up through the floor from the cellar where they were entombed.West
allegedly said: When they come up into you it's beautiful, it's when
they go away you are trying to hold them, you feel them flying away from
you and you try to stop them.� You can't send them back to where they
wereGiving UpOn Sunday, 30 September 2001, The London Mail
reported that Rosemary West had abandoned the latest appeal against her
conviction and had resigned herself to spending the rest of her life in
prison.Speaking for the first time since her
conviction she also expressed a desire to apologize to her daughter Ann
Marie for the abuse she suffered.� In a statement released to the Mail,
West said: Despite everything, I should like at some stage to apologize
to Ann Marie.� Ann Marie is part of my family and I would love to be
reconciled to her and have contact with her.She told the Mail
that she was dropping her appeal because she felt she would never be
free, even if released.� She also stated: she had come to understand
herself, and her relationships with others, for the first time in her
life.End of the RoadOn
Monday, 8 October 2001, Lynn Armstrongs claim against the Home Office
was rejected.� After the judgment Armstrong told reporters: This is not a
tragedy. What happened in New York was a tragedy. Life goes on.�� She
was refused leave to appeal but can still apply directly to the Court of
Appeal.�Latest Updates October, 2001 to January, 2003After
watching a 3-part Channel 5 documentary on Fred & Rose West in
early October of 2001, Gloucestershires chief constable Tim Brain told
the BBC that he thought it was sickening and unjustified.Gloucestershire
police found the broadcast out of context, hyped by inaccurate
allegations and in poor taste. The police were not opposed to
documentaries dealing with the West case, but other issues:Tim
Brain explained: What we object to is the use of this prosecution
material which is subject to legal privilege. Our second concern is the
feelings of the families of victimsWe believe any programme-makers
should handle this matter extremely delicately.Caroline
Roberts, 45, who was abducted and sexually assaulted by the Wests,
agreed that the documentaries should never have been shown, especially
in the entertainment business.

Parmjit Dhanda, MP (BBC)

The fact that a documentary was permitted to be made
using police interviews of Fred West was the subject of a bill
introduced in March of 2002 into Parliament by Gloucester MP Parmjit
Dhanda to prohibit the sale of criminal evidence.Fred
West had not made a will before he committed suicide in Birminghams
Winson Green Prison on New Years Day in 1995.� Therefore the tapes of
his interviews were never heard in court because his death occurred
before his trial.� In order to maximize the value of the Wests estate,
the official solicitor offered Wests possessions, including the tapes of
his interviews, to the highest bidder which was Creative Consortium, a
film production companyDhanda told the House of
Commons that: [The programme] showed Fred West describing his crimes in
great detailIt showed pictures of victims, faded in and out against
pictures of their skeletal remainsIt shows Rose West undressing in front
of the camera and in bed with her clients.Had West
not killed himself before his trial and almost certain conviction, the
British government would have owned that evidence.While Dhandas bill is unlikely to become law, the bill gave him the opportunity to say his mind about this controversial issue.As
controversial as the West documentary was, the Broadcasting Standards
Commission (BSC) in March of 2002 reported that the 3-part series was a
serious, unsensationalised effort to understand the Wests criminal
behavior.The BSC told BBC News that the idea of the
series was to place the killings in context to gain an insight into why
they took place and how Fred West evolved from a sex offender to a
serial killer.In August of 2002, Edinburghs forensic
psychologist Dr. Keith Ashcroft thinks that Fred Wests insatiable sex
needs were caused by a severe head injury after a motorcycle accident
that occurred when he was a teenager.Ashcroft
theorized that frontal lobe damage may be partially responsible for
sexual deviancy, although genetic defects or birth injuries could also
contribute.� Unfortunately, he has not been able to get access to Wests
autopsy reports to determine if his theory can be substantiated.Ashcroft
believes that extreme killers and pedophiles have brain abnormalities.
Their impulsivity, lack of contact with reality, and inability to engage
socially is linked to the frontal lobe of the brain its where our
conscience is.On November 25, 2002, British Law
Lords ruled that power exercised by the British home secretary to
increase minimum sentences given to murderers was incompatible with the
European Convention on Human Rights.Home Secretary
David Blunkett will push for new laws establishing minimum sentences for
certain crimes, such as the sexually-motivated murders committed by
Rose and Fred West.Rose Wests minimum sentence was
25 years for the murder of 10 women. However, the home secretary later
decided that she would serve a whole-life sentence.� Rose West announced
in 2001 that she intends to stay in prison for the rest of her life and
has abandoned her appeals.

___________

On
Wednesday, January 22, 2003, BBC News reported "the wedding between
jailed serial killer Rose West and Slade bass player Dave Glover has
been called off - just days after it was announced. The pair have been
writing to each other for a year, but Mr. Glover is reported to have
pulled out because of the publicity."� West and Glover surprised the
world when they announced their marriage on Sunday, January 19.By way of explanation for the broken engagement, Rose West said she wanted to give "this young man his life back."�Her
lawyer, Mr. Leo Goatley claimed that: "She sounded quite matter of fact
when she told me the news. She just said 'I want you to tell the press
that the relationship is at an end.'"�Reuters
reported that a spokesman said, "It has all come as an incredible
shock," said a spokesman. "At no point had Dave Glover discussed this.
It's like marrying Hitler."� Slade said Glover, 36, had been working
regularly with them over the last 18 months, but that he was a session
musician and his contract had now been terminated.